Crush fetish

A crush fetish is a fetish and a paraphilia in which sexual arousal is associated with observing objects being crushed or being crushed oneself. The crushed objects vary from inanimate items (e.g., food), to injurious and/or fatal crushing of invertebrates (e.g., insects, snails, worms, spiders), or vertebrates (e.g., birds, reptiles, mammals).

In the most severe cases, crushing has involved homicide or extended torture until death of restrained animals including dogs, cats, pigs, and monkeys. Animal welfare organisations, such as the Humane Society of the United States, condemn this practice. Additionally, links between animal abuse and violence towards humans are being researched, with animal abuse perhaps being a precursor to further violence, and animal cruelty cases have been tracked by the American FBI since 2016. The motivation for these acts may be in the financial gain derived from producing a film of the acts, which is sold on the Internet to crush fetishists who find the content sexually gratifying and perhaps entertaining, a tailored genre known as "crush film". Those in impoverished areas may be more likely to produce and star in this content due to financial gain.

There are currently no laws specifically forbidding the crushing of animals, but the production or trade of crush erotica involving live vertebrates is illegal in many countries, including the United States, Italy and the United Kingdom. In the United States, interstate commerce in (hard) crush videos has been illegal since 2010, and many other countries also have banned them.

Classification

Crush fetishists have used terms to classify crushing on the basis of the victim subjected to the crushing:

'Object crush' – crushing of food, toys, electronics and other non-living items.